Google App Inventor DIY Android app tool now out of the closed beta

posted by Daniel P. / Dec 16, 2010, 3:33 AM

The DIY Android application software Google App Inventor is out of beta now, and available to everyone who wants to make their Android gear do simple tasks, without a single line of code. The goal from the onset has been to engage smartphone users, and turn them from observers of the hectic pace with which the industry is developing, to engaged creators of content for their Android handsets. Google App Inventor is aiming to let folks who don't want to spend months or years studying programming languages, make their own Android apps that no one else might use, but would make life easier for this particular individual.

The web-based software has been tested on different target groups, including high school girls - the least geeky people on the planet – and the ease of use appeared promising. App creation is as simple as dragging together code wrapped as images to make a newly minted app do basic tasks like send a text message to someone under certain circumstances. The pieces of the coding puzzle also allow you to use the phone's hardware such as accelerometer sensors, in order to detect certain positions, and take action accordingly.

Tinkering around with your computer, playing or creating simple games of the whac-a-mole type for example, which you can do with Google App Inventor, is how a lot of users got into IT in the first place. Google hopes to bring this experience to Android application development, which might eventually attract even more “developers” to Android.

This open approach to software creation's main virtue is that it opens the floodgates of people's imagination, and widens the base for content creation. It is a simple logic that might start a quiet revolution in the way people view their all-in-one gadget, the smartphone. Now, if only Google has been testing this with soccer moms and achieved satisfactory results, consider us sold to the idea. Anyone who used it, give us a shout in the comments how your creations turned up.

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